thumb gusset

Hmm

I've finished the button bands and am pleased with them. I now acknowledge what I knew all along: the armbands are too tight and the shoulders are too wide, which gives a odd bunched effect - not good! I'm going to ponder their future. I think what I'll probably have to do is cut away some of the shoulder width and thus bring the armbands in, plus pick up 4 in 5 instead of 2 in 3.

Why don't I just follow patterns? Well I thought I needed to increase the stitch count because I thought the top as written would be too small. Then I didn't want to do a v-neck, and so it goes.

Buttonholes

I'm making slow but steady progress on the button and buttonhole band (all in one). I've made the buttonholes on the wrong side, but that doesn't matter at all to me. I used the one-row buttonhole that Priscilla Gibson-Roberts describes in Knitting in the Old Way (sucha good book) and I'm pleased by how neatly they've turned out.

Ploughing on

Gosh, button bands can take forever! The bands on my Blue Bown fair isle are all of a piece with the neck band and the neck is quite wide, so the strip I'm knitting is l.o.n.g. It's a bit fiddly having to work back and forth with two colours after the round and round of the garment itself, but I've developed a nifty flicking movement with my left forefinger that I'm rather pleased with!

I've nearly finished digging my potato patch on the allotment. I know: I'm horribly behind, but things usually catch up. I've worked my way into digging quite slowly and now I feel able to really get stuck in.

So, I'm ploughing on in my knitting and - more literally - in the earth!

Day 3

I finished a pattern on the fair isle waistcoat (or maybe cardigan) last night:

The scheme is: large, 24-stitch, 19/21-row patterns alternating with smaller, 12-stitch, 9/11-row patterns. These bands are separated by the 3-row dot pattern. There are four each of the large and small patterns. I substituted the dot pattern for one specified in the book because I couldn't get that one to 'read' against the others (I don't think it does in the original, either). The large patterns use the turquoise shades as background and the browns for pattern, and then this is reversed for the smaller patterns. I hadn't realised that the warm browns would be so 'advancing' in the smaller patterns - it does mean that the design isn't so clear with the colours reversed, but overall it's fine.

There's an Alice Starmore pattern in the latest VK (Vogue Knitting) by the way for fair isle fans. I haven't got it to hand, but I think it's Oregon. It includes lots of sizes (up to xxl).

Day two

A non-knitting post today. A little while ago I was chatting with a friend about families and how complicated they can be. We both found that the families we grew up in had lots of things that weren't said or acknowledged.

In my granny's house there was a shrine to her eldest son, my father's brother, who died on the Matterhorn at the age of 24. He had already successfully climbed the mountain and that day he and his friends decided to go up without a guide. There was an avalanche and I think the whole group perished. In her hall my grandmother had a huge framed photo of William, plus his iceaxe nicely arranged and a framed certificate from the Royal Humane Society for bravery in saving someone's life. I saw these every time I visited but nobody ever talked about them and I never heard the details of the lifesaving incident.

After my grandmother's death all sorts of things found their way to my parents' house, but it wasn't until after my father's death a couple of years later that we all noticed that there was no sign of the photo, certificate, or - most oddly - the iceaxe. I think for all those years he had quietly bottled up feelings of anger, rivalry, and who knows what. When the chance came he just dumped the objects without explaining or justifying himself to anyone. I hope it was a relief!

It would have been my father's 82nd birthday today. He died quite a while ago now and although I do think of him a lot, his birthday doesn't cast a shadow over November as it did for the first few years. November is gloomy enough without that!

The blue bowl

I'm calling this project 'blue bowl' after some lovely Persian pottery bowls that my mother has. The turquoise glaze is a bit uneven and the black designs delightfully hand drawn. I'm basing the design on 'Fair Isle Long Line Slipover' in Traditional Knitting from the Scottish and Irish Isles edited by Debbie Bliss.

The second photo gives a better idea of the colours and is knitted in my final selection. The yarn selection is rather eclectic because I swatched with what I have got stashed away. I collect Shetland yarns from different sources because they nearly all go together. The deepest peacock colour is Harrisville New England Shetland in Bluegrass. Most of the other yarns are Jamieson's or Jamieson's and Smith. The third blue-green is, however, Rowanspun 4 ply in Eeu de Nil and of course this is now unavailable. I think I have found a J&S substitute - Eucalyptus. The second darkest brown is Rowan Scottish Tweed 4 ply.

Well, I have yarns on order and so I am forced to knit other things. I'm working my way up the front of my Perfect Sweater a la Mason Dixon blog. Then I just have to sew it together! I have finished my Conwy socks bar the final grafting of the toe. I'm on the second of my Monkey socks. I'm trying to clear the decks for some obsessive stranded knitting - can't wait!